Tuesday, October 9, 2012

----------------------- Walk Cycles using mocap.
We'll get started this week with some refresher concepts about cycles and animating walks in Maya. This time around we will be using mocap data as the basis for our walk cycles. You may record this yourself or use prerecorded data.

Your Walk cycle must be a character-specific study backed up with video reference, thumbnails etc.

I want character walks, not just any old generic tutorial walks. You shot reference, you can shoot more. This is where all your animation principles and study all come together. Make it yours and make it awesome.

Assignment 4: Walk Cycle using mocap
Assigned: 10/10/12Due: 31/10/12
% of final grade: 20%
Use the pre-built humanoid skeleton or your own rig.
Animate a treadmill walk based on mocap data. Walks should clearly shows the personality and attitude of the character. The timing (both frames per step and timing of secondary actions such as arm swings and head drag) should support the attitude and personality. The character should have a believable weight. Steps should be symmetrical and the motion should be fluid and smooth without obvious pops or bumps. Body parts should be offset from one another a bit so every part of the action doesn't occur on the same frame.

Rubric:
Exemplary: Clear personality and attitude, strong apparent weight, fluid motion with a strong grasp of all animation principles.
Excellent: Apparent personality, weight and almost entirely fluid motion with a good grasp of nearly all animation principles.
Acceptable: Some personality and weight. Motion is mostly fluid with minor errors or missing animation principles.
Not Acceptable: Generic walk not convincingly heavy or not fluid with quite a few glitches or missing animation principles.

Please submit files to our shared DropBox folder.

Please hand in 2 files named as follows:tdonovan_walk_000.matdonovan_walk_000.mov

Include any referenced files and video reference. Please watch your naming conventions. No caps, extra characters or spaces. Feel free to number the files up to 999 as you like. It will help differentiate the files should you need to resubmit.

Please note that for this week and next week the class has been moved to Room 520 at 3:00 pm Bring drawing materials, and a stylus.
---------------------------------- Animation speed drill o' the day: handstand idleIt can be a funny handstand or a serious one. Once the pose looks nice see if you can turn it into an idle cycle.-----------------------------------------

Human Anatomy 1 + Photoshop BasicsWe'll work in the Cintiq labs (TBA) and begin part 1 of our Human Anatomy study: the skeleton.

Using a photo of an action pose as a base layer, draw the underlying skeleton. Aim to make your drawing a portfolio piece that shows both your knowledge and your artistic skill. The drawing can be very detailed or you may generalize forms as shown in the study above.This is most easily done digitally, but you can draw on tracing paper and scan it. Find your own photo or use one of these from ESPN's body issue.

Use lots of reference for the skeleton -Visible Body is very helpful but it costs >$30.

But let's not get stuck UV'ing for the whole class -- the next assignment is all about how texturing shows the effects of time, use, and weather. You will be going into the wild to start taking photo reference of urban decay. Using these photos you will be creating a style guide for your upcoming texturing project.

Assigned: 10/10/12Due: Wednesday, Oct 31st, beforeclass1)
Shoot and process a library of at least 10 photo textures related to
your fire hydrant project. In addition you may include related reference
images such as backgrounds, ground and wall treatments.2)
Create a reference guide using your photos showing how you will
approach the texturing of the hydrant assignment. (Note: you do not
have to follow the guide exactly for the texturing assignment.)Make
your photos look their best by fixing levels, contrast, hue &
saturation to bump up details and get rid of fake-looking colour casts.
Images should be clear, in focus, and free from extraneous detail.
Textures should be ready to use with shadows or highlights removed.
Shoot in flat light, dry weather, perpendicular to your subject. Avoid
perspective and warping by zooming in from a few steps back. If it's
potentially tileable, shoot a large enough surface area. If it's a
detail, get close enough to the subject. Remind yourself of keys to good textures on this site:http://www.cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=shootingtexturesSAVE your images at any resolution.SEND me your images only as NON-interlaced PNGs.Measurement of longest edge: 2048File naming convention:tdonovan_descriptor_001.pngex: photo textures:tdonovan_peelingpaint_001.pngtdonovan_scratches_001.pngtdonovan_brickwall_001.pngtdonovan_grafitti_001.pngtdonovan_grafitti_002.pngreference images:tdonovan_streetcorner_ref_001.png reference guide:tdonovan_texref_001.png